Home and Away is set to divide audiences when it introduces a lesbian romance this month.Is this just a cheap grab for ratings (“jumping the shark”), a way to encourage a few young men to watch for a bit of titillation, or just a good way to annoy the conservative religious groups?

Possibly all three, but who really cares?

Not surprisingly

Conservative family groups [read: religious nutbags] have reacted angrily to the plot in the PG-rated show, which boasts a large child and teen fan base.

In my view if it is handled sensitively and not trivialised or sensationalised then there is nothing wrong with having a lesbian romance in a teen TV show. After all there are probably quite a few teens coming to terms with their sexuality and this as Psychologist Dr Janet Hall says “allows families to discuss the topic. ”

Of course the religious nutbags don’t see it that way, they see it as an attack on heterosexuality and trying to convert everyone to teh gays… Oh noes!

The best part of the article is the comments, such as :

Rita Morris 11:25am today You talk about stopping a world full of hatred & animosity yet you are the one preaching it. I am gay yet I dont hate you nor who you are – its a shame you can’t show me the same respect. Stop hiding behind god to justify your bigoted views & look at the hypocracy of what you are saying.

Posted by: Mitch of Brisbane 3:00pm today
Comment 183 of 189

Pity a nice family program gone gay!!! Men and women were “created” and if it were to be only a one sex world then it would have been “created” that way. NO that was not the plan when God created the world. Wake up all you people who talk about being and feeling loved. The moral of happiness is a good male-female relationship, trust, honesty, respect and then may be we will not live in a world so full of hatred and animosity and lopsided views which many think are “right”. This is wrong.

Posted by: Rita Morris 11:25am today
Comment 116 of 189

All you narrow minded pathetic plebs make me sick. Its 2009 and you are still bible bashing going on about how man and woman were created and everything else is evil. What a load of crap. I think its pretty obvious by now that homosexuality is something beyond a person’s control. It’s not simply a lifestyle choice. And as for NORM – you are honestly a waste of human life.

Posted by: J of Brisbane 2:59pm today
Comment 182 of 189

With so much acceptance of this sickening trash and seeing such relationships as “normal”, its really no wonder that this country is in the sewer and our dollar at half price.

Posted by: Norm 11:29am today
Comment 119 of 189

Last time I checked, I thought that PG stood for “Parental Guidance” and not “Passed by God”. Wake up, it’s just a story. If parents don’t want their kids watching two actresses attempting to pass off a lesbian kiss that’s as unconvincing as Matthew Newton in “Underbelly”, pick up the remote and change the channel back to “Songs of Praise”. It’s all about choice. Narrow-mindedness (read: religion) has no place in society anymore, let alone any influence.

Posted by: The Emancipation 2:59pm today
Comment 181 of 189

“The plot lines that young kids and teenagers should be presented with should be about really authentic relationships, and not just sexualized.” So, gay and lesbians can’t have authentic relationships? With a statement like that I think a few conservative family groups need to be come a little less religious, and a little more in touch with reality. That being said I may have to tune in for “the episode” just to check it out. 🙂

This is just obscene. Young girls will see this and all become lesbians. You know, just like I and thousands of other gay people turned to heterosexuality after watching straight relationships on the show …

Posted by: MJ 11:23am today
Comment 113 of 190

and this is just so true and so telling of a lot of religious people:

It still amazes me that shows like Home and Away can get more and more violent over the years (stalker story lines, drug dealers holding people at knife point and a whole high school formal being trapped inside a burning building) and no one seems to bat an eyelid….but the second a “gay” storyline commences every one is up in arms. Are we really that much in the dark ages?

Posted by: Bernice 10:04am today
Comment 79 of 190

One final comment:

Gay is unnatural sexual relationship and enemy of God that created Man and Woman as natural sexual relationship.

Posted by: Anthony Mayfield 9:15am today
Comment 34 of 190

Sarcasm or Stupidity?

As quite a few readers pointed out, the only thing wrong with this is it seems to be a cheap ploy to boost ratings.

I think the whole things is a “Storm in a teacup“, but there’s some freakin’ hilarious comments on the article.

Hope these dudes don’t mind too much me ripping off their comments?? 😦

I wasn’t going to bother blogging today, but when I heard this headline on the news, I knew I had to say something.

In the Pope’s annual Christmas speech he stated that:

… saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. from ABC News

Reading between the lines the Pope seems to be inferring that if nothing is done to stop them ‘teh gays’ will take over the world, and humanity will then fade away. Well unless everyone on the planet suddenly becomes homosexual, and I for one am not about to (sorry guys, LOL), I don’t think we have anything to worry about.

I think I can confidently state that heterosexuals are as likely to become homosexual as homosexuals are to become heterosexual. I don’t think the Pope realises that your sexuality is not something you choose. Just because you legalise homosexuality, and give the GLBT community all the same rights and privileges as everyone else, it will not suddenly cause everyone to decide to become gay.

Quite rightly gay groups and activists have labelled the Pope’s comments as irresponsible and unacceptable.

For the first time ever the NSW Government is assisting in funding the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras! I heard this piece of news on Friday then promptly forgot about it, fortunately a new reader, Jimmy, reminded me about the funding of the Catholic World Youth Day, which reminded me about this piece of news.

As many of you know both the State and Federal Governments funded the Catholic World Youth Day to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. So why shouldn’t the government fund the Mardi Gras? As the new NSW Premier said about the Mardi Gras:

It’s become an international showcase of Sydney’s inclusiveness, creativity and diversity, and a celebration shared by the wider community.

Unlike the CWYD which, even though they tried to convince us otherwise, was really only of interest to a small minority of Catholics.

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is one of the biggest events of it’s kind in the world. The Mardi Gras has had some of the largest audiences of any event in Australia and as Events NSW Chief Executive Geoff Parmenter says:

“It has been estimated that the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras generates more than $30 million of direct economic benefit for NSW each year, and it has become an international showcase of Sydney’s diversity.”

So what has taken so long for the government to finally chip in a few dollars? When I heard this news, one of the first things I wondered was; what impact did all the negative feedback from the general populace about CWYD have on the decision to fund the Mardi Gras. I wasn’t the only person at the time making comparisons to the two events and questioning why one got government funds and the other didn’t.

The two letters to the newspaper I sent (neither of which got published) outlined the concerns I had at the time and the total inaccuracies being spouted by the Catholic Apologetics. You can read those on my Letters to the Editor post.

However, there are still a few people who don’t agree with me, and the many others, who think the government should financially assist the Mardi Gras. The Daily Telegraph has a couple of articles and blogs with criticisms of the funding. There is also a poll on the Daily Telegraph article, which has over 500 comments!, which is currently running at over 70% in favour of the funding.

In some respects I agree with some of the comments, that why should the government (i.e.. us taxpayers) help fund what is currently a reasonably financially successful event. The bottom line is, why not? Why should the government not assist the Mardi Gras but assist the vastly more wealthy Catholic church? Government funds all sorts of things that you or I might not agree on, but at least they have to be fair when it comes to handing out money.

So I’m going to do a Pharyngula and ask all my readers to skew the poll (side bar, about half way down) and vote Yes.

One last thing, whilst finishing writing this I’m half listening to Compass, which is on in the background in the next room. Something about a bunch of deluded twits from some wacked out religious collage in America that helps breed lobbyists intent on “reclaiming America for Christ.”. Scary, scary, scary; American atheists get out now while there’s still a chance! I’ve got a spare room if anyone’s interested. :lol:

VJack asked me to consider this article from the results of a recent survey into Homophobia in Australia.

The findings didn’t overly surprise me, according to the article the most homophobic person would be: a Baptist, or evangelical Christian, elderly male from Sydney’s southern suburbs. Scarily enough I was brought up a Baptist in the northern suburbs of Adelaide (see below), though I’m not quite elderly … yet.

Now I am not surprised at these findings except for the southern suburbs bit. The article also stated that males between 14 and 17 were more likely to hold anti-gay views than older males (except perhaps the elderly, but I don’t think the next generation of elderly will be the same. The current elderly are pre 60s peace and love hippy baby boomers who had (generally) very strict upbringings. The current crop of people (the baby boomers) who will be the next generation of elderly grew up in more enlightened times and, I would like to think, would be considerably less homophobic than the current generation of elderly folks). The current X and Y generations appear to be even more tolerant, so there is hope for the future.

Religious Influence

Religion plays quite a large part in peoples tolerance to homosexuality. For whatever reason the religious, in general, are quite anti-gay, their leaders (the Pope is right up there in the charge) are forever demonising homosexuality. The Anglican church may end up splitting over views on homosexuality, the modern more liberal side say it’s Ok and the more old style Anglicans say it’s not. So while in general homosexuality, quite rightly, is much less demonised than it used to be by the general populace, hard-line religious leaders are still promoting the idea that it is wrong. Therefore there are still a lot of young people being indoctrinated, by their elders and persons of ‘authority’, that homosexuality is wrong. On a brighter note, even though young people are being bombarded from the pulpit with the message that homosexuality is wrong, many are making up their own minds and deciding it isn’t. There also seems a small (?) but strong movement within some religions to encompass the GLBT community.

I guess part of the change within the church reflects the change within the general populace. We are only now starting to see laws that permit homosexual marriages and give full legal rights to same sex partners. So will we see more and more churches accepting the homosexual community as the wider populace and the government becomes more accepting and reduces the barriers to homosexuals that aren’t there for heterosexual couples?

Teenagers

I have heard a few reasons why teenage boys are more homophobic. The article suggests that high schools are a “toxic environment promoting anti-gay beliefs” but why is that? I would need to do further research, but suspect it’s all to do with the increase of hormones and finding your purpose in life which happens at this time of your life. It’s only in your teenage years that you really start to explore your sexuality, and the world predominately promotes a heterosexual lifestyle. So if you are gay you might be thinking “why am I different” and perhaps trying to combat your feelings towards same sex partners because that’s what so many people tell you is the right thing to do? I have also heard the idea that some men will be overtly anti-gay because they have gay tendencies themselves, but because of “societal norms” they refuse to accept their own selves. (Not being homosexual I can’t really imagine what they think, but I have heard similar concepts in the media. I am happy to be corrected or enlightened by anyone with a greater knowledge than mine in this area.) During this stage of life males are starting to try and prove their masculinity, trying to do the “Alpha Male” thing. So what better way to show how tough you are than ridicule anyone who isn’t as tough and macho as you. Hence, calling other males a “poof” if they show any tendencies of the “stereotypical gay man”.

My Views

I know I went through this stage, for quite a few years, what with having a religious background and then starting work at a young age in a very male dominated environment. It was only after throwing off the shackles of religion, becoming comfortable with my own sexuality, and doing some research (not just listening to what people told me) that I realised that homosexuality is just a part of how some people are. That being Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, or Transgender/Transexual is perfectly normal for those people and that they aren’t all like the stereotypes often portrayed in the media.

As a heterosexual man, who quite adores the female body and how it interacts with the male body, I still find it difficult sometimes to comprehend why a person wouldn’t want to experience what I do. But then I have to stop myself and consider they probably think exactly the same about me “why wouldn’t he want to experience what I do”.

I know I still don’t always get it right when discussing this topic and hope I haven’t offended any members of the GLBT community who may read this article. Feel free to let me know if I have.

Southern Suburbs

The article points out that research shows that the southern suburbs of Sydney has a high percentage of intolerance to homosexuality. The article states that this might be due to the

values of migrant communities and the influence of evangelical churches

Interestingly the north-western region of Sydney is cited as having a high rate of religious service attendance, so what’s happening down south? Could it just be the the high level of immigrants there, after all that was where the Cronulla riots where. Whilst that riot was racially motivated several churches were attacked. I can’t find the figures, but suspect there may be a fairly high level of Muslims ‘down south’, and they are not overly known for their tolerance to homosexuality.

Though a quick check using Google maps seems to indicate more Islamic centres out west, or south-west, rather than down south? Similar to the spread of Evangelical churches.

So I really have no idea (apart from some wild conjecture) why the southern suburbs are more anti-gay. Interestingly it’s not only Sydney where the homophobes seem to congregate in the southern suburbs. According to the Mapping Homophobia report, the outer south & east of Melbourne and the southern region of Brisbane are also the most homophobic of those cities. In Adelaide the most homophobic is the northern region, but with the southern region coming in a close second. Only Perth kicks the trend with the southern suburbs coming in at third place (though only 1% and 2% behind the top two regions).

Your Turn

I hope this satisfies VJack’s request, I welcome him and all others to express their views. Let me know why you think the southern regions might be so homophobic. Let me know of your own personal experiences with homophobia, either on the receiving or giving end; or just discuss the topic in general.

In answer to a question on another forum I stated that one of the reasons Catholics are being ‘picked on’ lately is because they are making themselves such easy targets. What with Catholic World Youth Day (C-WYD) and all the apologetics saying how wonderful it’s going to be. Not to mention they are an out-dated, misogynistic, homophobic, power hungry, imaginary sky god worshipping, religious organisation, led by an old authoritarian man in a dress, red shoes and a pointy hat.

A lot of the criticism aimed at C-WYD is the cost to the NSW taxpayers, with the state government spending over $100 million on it. The government has tried to deflect some of the criticism by saying that the event would bring economic benefits to NSW and particularly Sydney. Well it seems that’s not entirely true. It was revealed yesterday that a $3 million contract to provide 800,000 meals for pilgrims has gone to Melbourne. As NSW Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said:

“The Government has boasted this is an event not just about hosting Catholics coming to New South Wales, but bringing economic benefit to New South Wales. We’ve just seen that go over the border.”

Then there is the report from the Vatican daily Osservatore Romano decrying the media picking on the Pope and his extravagant clothing. Esquire magazine had named the Pope as the “accessoriser of the year” mainly for his bright red shoes supposedly made by Prada. As the ABC reports

The [Vatican daily] article explained that the pope’s shoes, like his range of flamboyant hats, are nothing to do with vanity but all to do with tradition.

The group Acceptance was hoping to hold an event to discuss the issues around young Catholics who are gay or lesbian.

C-WYD organisers had already refused an initial request to allow the event to be part of official activities, now they have intervened to stop the forum being sponsored by the Jesuit group MAGis.

… MAGiS was contacted by World Youth Day officials and instructed to withdraw its support.

And some of the C-WYD apologetics say this event is going to be so inclusive. Inclusive if you are a catholic youth who isn’t gay or lesbian.

If you would like to support the gay and lesbian community, and protest the anti-condom stance of the catholic church, then you can get involved in the NoToPope Coalition. Also reported here where they say the protesters plan to hand out free condoms to pilgrims en route to the papal Mass at Randwick Racecourse.

(Though what the heck the Raelians are doing in this coalition, I have no idea. But it is probably in protest to their leader being denied a visa to visit this country.)

Catholic Church, I have a tip for you. Stop trying to make out the World Youth Day is such a great thing, we all know it’s just a recruiting drive. If you want people to stop ‘picking on you’ or ‘having a go at you’ then shut up. Most of us really aren’t interested in your bizarre rituals, including bringing dead bodies to youth festivals. This is not a catholic country so don’t try and impose your homophobic, misogynist ideals on the rest of us.

Richard Ackland reports that today an application is going before the High Court to see if there is a case that the Commonwealth governments expenditure on Catholic World Youth Day is in breach of the constitution. We await the outcome.